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Eye on the Diamonds

In 2007 Terry Crawford-Browne published the explosive Eye On The Money. Primarily an account of the international banking sanctions campaign against apartheid during the 1980s, it also dealt with the early stages of the now well documented South African arms deal scandal, over which many unresolved questions still remain. Eye On The Diamonds is a sequel to the earlier book in that it provides updated information on the uncovering of the scandal aimed at keeping the arms deal saga and the venality of the war business in public focus. In 2008 Crawford-Browne was asked to lead a public interest application to the South African Constitutional Court and was successful in September 2011 in forcing President Jacob Zuma’s appointment of a judicial commission of inquiry into the arms deal and numerous related allegations of bribery among politically well-connected members of the African National Congress – the socalled‘black diamonds’. Eye On The Diamonds’ focus on diamonds links the colonial and apartheid histories of South Africa with the close histories of Israel and Palestine. It demonstrates how De Beers, the South African originated company which dominated the diamond cartel for more than a century is fast losing control to far more ruthless Israeli players. Crawford-Browne suggests that the diamondtrade, which is critical to the twenty-first century war business, makes every diamond a ‘blood diamond’. Blood diamonds provide the ultimate money laundering opportunity for organised crime , while the Israeli war business thwarts efforts at peaceful resolution of conflict. Israel itself has become a ‘promised land’ for organised crime where assassinations, money laundering and other criminal activities are justified in the ‘national interest’. Crawford-Browne shows, in this well-researched, hard-hitting book, that the international war business and the corruption it unleashes are clearly out of control.